The move follows Ukraine's ratification of the minerals agreement, deepening U.S.-Ukraine economic ties and signaling expanded U.S. involvement in Ukraine's long-term recovery.
"Ukraine has initiated a coordinated campaign to vilify Hungary in order to undermine our initiative to hold a poll on (Kyiv's) EU membership," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that further concessions from Ukraine during negotiations would be unreasonable if Russia continues to attack civilian targets.
U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, will travel to Istanbul for possible peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, Reuters reported on May 13, citing three undisclosed sources.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, but said both leaders are ready to fly to Istanbul if Russian President Vladimir Putin chooses to attend the talks there.
A captive named Umit allegedly agreed to serve in the Russian army in exchange for Russian citizenship and a monetary reward of 2 million rubles ($25,000).
Russia's Buryatia Republic declared a state of emergency on May 13 over massive forest fires that have engulfed multiple regions in the Russian Far East.
Hungary's Pylyp Akilov (in blue) fights against Ukraine's Oleksandr Khyzhniak in the men's 80kg preliminaries round of 16 boxing match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the North Paris Arena, in Villepinte on July 30, 2024 (Mohd Rafsan/AFP via Getty Images)
Ukraine's Oleksandr Khyzhniak progressed to the quarter-finals of the men's middleweight boxing event at the Paris Olympics on July 30.
Khyzhniak defeated Ukrainian Pylyp Akilov, who represents Hungary, by a majority decision. He will face Brazil's Wanderley Pereira on Aug. 2.
This is Khyzhniak's second try at Olympic gold. He was forced to settle for silver during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Akilov was in Mariupol when Russia launched its all-out war, escaping the occupied city through Russia.
Akilov settled in Hungary, receiving a Hungarian passport a year later.
Elsewhere on July 30, Ukraine's Marta Kostiuk reached the tennis quarter-finals at the 2024 Olympics, beating Maria Sakkari of Greece in three sets.
Kostiuk won 4:6, 7:6, 6:4, and will play Croatia's Donna Vekich in the next round on July 31. But there was disappointment for Ukraine's Elina Svitolina, who failed to progress to the quarter-finals.
She was beaten by Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, losing 6:7, 6:2, 4:6. Ukraine won its first medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics on July 29, when fencer Olga Kharlan took bronze in the women's individual saber event.
In a fiercely contested match, the 33-year-old beat South Korea's Choi Se-bin 15-14. Kharlan made her way to the Olympic semi-finals, beating Japan's Shihomi Fukushima, Azerbaijan's Anna Bashta, and Hungary's Anna Marton before losing to France's Sarah Balzer.
The bronze makes her Ukraine's equal-most decorated Olympian in history by number of medals, and the first Ukrainian to win medals in four separate Games.
Chris York is news operations editor at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, he was head of news at the Kyiv Post. Previously, back in Britain, he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK. He holds an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds.
Kateryna Hodunova
